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Monday, 27 March 2017

It is a long walk from my home to the fishing port and back but I did it on Saturday. It was manageable for several reasons. Not least it was possible because we have had unseasonably cool weather for March. Indeed, it even rained on Friday evening. Second, the walk is broken up by West Nouakchott Pools about half way. Third, there is always a chance of seeing something in the scattered bushes on the way.West Nouakchott pools held many waders as usual. However the best was probably the two spotted redshank.

spotted redshank

DNA studies show it is closer to common greenshank than to common redshank despite its looks.

common greenshank with spotted redshank

Both these species were also present. Indeed there were high numbers of common greenshank.

wood sandpiper

Other waders included the unibiquitous wood sandpiper and little stint. Both are extremely common in water bodies in Nouakchott for at least half the year.

ruff

West Nouakchott pools gives me my best chance of anywhere in the city to see ruff.

spur-winged lapwing

By comparison, spur-winged lapwing is usually found at all sizeable inland water bodies and apparantly in all seasons.

red-billed quelea

In one of the bushes next to the pools, I found my first red-billed quelea in the city. I had speculated that this would happen as they are so numerous 30 kilometres south at the new water works. I believe the works is helping to act as a bridge for this species from its normal range near the Senegal River.As far as I can tell, there has been at least one previous record of the species in the city and one further north near Atar.

kentish plover

On the scrubland close to the fishing port, I came across a Kentish plover which was starting to fake injury. This is a deflection tactic to move threats way from its young.I gave it a wide bearth as soon as I saw it. There is no point stressing such a bird just to watch a display.A short distance further but still short of the coast is a place gulls often settle in windy weather. There were plenty on Saturday.Most of the gulls were lesser black-backed gull.

lesser black-backed gull with a ring

Two of them were young birds with the same pair of rings. I could only read one bird's rings. However I now know that this bird is from just north west of Edinburgh in Scotland. I see a large number of gulls with rings and ocassionally waders too.When I finally arrived at the lagoons, south of the fishing port, it was apparent that the number and variety of terns was the highest since last September.

little tern

Five little tern were grouped together.

Caspian tern and a common tern

Both common tern and arctic tern pass Nouakchott on migration in large numbers though neither often land here. Indeed this is only the second common tern I have seen on land since I arrived. The previous one was in poor condition in autmn near Nouadhibou.Arctic tern are less likely still to land. They usually migrate well out to sea. However Saturday's westerly wind was unusual. This bird is definitely a common tern. It's bill has a dark tip and its wings aren't long enough.

mixed species with a common tern

In the far end of the lagoons near the supply pipe, a single white-winged black tern was in the same area as a few waders including a red knot as well as several swimming slender-billed gull.

white-winged black tern

The final tern in the area was sandwich tern. Many were feeding over the water and close into shore.

sandwich tern

Gull numbers are definitely thinning out now, none more so than black-headed gull.

black-headed gull

Most slender-billed gull that remain are immatures. Surely they will over-summer as do many of their countereparts in the Gulf. At least one adult still remained though.

slender-billed gull

Apart from the red knot already mentioned, waders this time were a little disappointing.

sanderling with a little stint

Four great white pelican flying over the water were the only other birds of consequence.I will keep visiting the fishing port over the next few weeks. Overall, things are moving pretty fast now.

Sunday, 26 March 2017

A week ago Saturday, Mohamed Vall and I returned to local birding.We visited three sites in the city area. The first was south of the fisherman's market.

mostly lesser black-backed gull (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

The lesser black-backed gull were still there in large numbers. However there were notably less Mediterranean gull and Audouin gull. A few more terns had arrived too as spring advances.

sandwich tern with lesser black backed gull

Most of the new terns were either sandwich tern or more Caspian tern which have swelled the winter numbers of the latter.

Caspian tern diving (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

The big change has not yet happened. I am keen to find out what the summer diversity there is on the coast. Is it too much to ask for the odd roseate tern and bridled tern to add to my country list.

Elsewhere we looked closely at many of the crested lark once again for any thekla lark which have been ocassionally reported but which I am a little cynical.

young crested lark

We did find a very short billed lark which is one of the realtive characteristics of thekla lark compared to crested lark. Unfortunately the bird was clearly very young. It had a yellow gape and many feathers were fringed pale buff.The fisherman's rubbish dump did not yield the hoped-for red-throated pipit though yellow wagtail numbers were up and two white wagtail are lingering.After the fishing port, we headed south to the water company site in the Riyadh district. The factory produces a small river which lasts 50 metres.

African silverbill and red-billed quelea

We were hampered in our observations by easterly winds bringing a dust storm off the Sahara. This was the closest to Nouakchott that I had seen red-billed quelea. African silverbill are also present in lesser numbers. The two sometimes form mixed flocks though the red-billed quelea numbers are so much larger.

white wagtail

Once again my main target was red-throated pipit though there were other possibilities since the main passage season has just begun.The pipit's cousins were present. These were namely white wagtail and yellow wagtail.

yellow wagtail

A pipit was briefly seen. However I am confident it was a tree pipit. In spring they are easily separated. In autumn it is more difficult as the red throat and face have usually gone.

sudanese golden sparrow

House sparrow and a few sudanese golden sparrow added to the density of birds at the site. I considered a petronia for the sparrow above but couldn't make it fit!

greater short toed lark (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

The rarest bird, at least in the Nouakchott area was greater short toed lark. Indeed two of them kept returning to the water bank to drink. It always pays to stay alert when birding. Plenty of female black-crowned sparrow lark came to drink too and these two short toed lark could easily have been over-looked.

greater short toed lark (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

Our last call was to North Noaukchott Lake. Sadly the trash had continued to gather but the birds have not yet vacated.

speckled pigeon

This place must be visited regularly. It always produces at least 30 species. However the mix has not changed radically for spring yet. The ducks have gone but small numbers of the black-headed gull, Mediterranean gull and black-backed gull remain.

yellow wagtail

Yet another look for red-throated pipit proved fruitless. Once again both yellow wagtail and white wagtail were present. The pipit is becoming a nemesis bird for me in Mauritania.

common snipe

Wader numbers are peaking though once again no new species have been seen.

40 barn swallow (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

There was a big influx of barn swallow that day. We counted 65 which prompted E-bird to describe it as a rare occurance and required an explanation.

closer view of some barn swallow

I am pretty much confined to Nouakchott for a while. I hope the city can provide a good mix this spring.This weekend, at least the variety and numbers of terns has improved the mix. I will blog about that next.

Friday, 17 March 2017

Journeying to and from Atar, Mohamed Vall and I stopped twice on the way up and twice on the way back down. All stops were at Akjoujt or within 100 kilometres south.

The highlight by far was the stop on the way back at a large, natural open woodland about 30 kilometres south of the city. It is a remarkable site surrounded by semi-desert. Though it was the last stop of all over the weekend, we could admire its potential for a longer visit. Western orphean warbler, sub-alpine warbler and woodchat shrike were testimony to it's potential for passage birds.

However it was the sighting of a Eurasian skylark which made it so exciting on the day.

Eurasian skylark 1

There are only three records of skylark in Mauritania as far as I know. All are at Cap Blanc on the border with Western Sahara and near Nouadibou.

Eurasian skylark 2

However given how under-birded central and northern Mauritania is coupled with the fact it is not uncommon on the northern edge of the Sahara desert (this is close to the southern edge), I wonder if it isn't actually that rare. Time should tell.

Eurasian skylark 3

I don't know how far south it has been recorded in East Africa but this may just be the furthest south one has ever been recorded on the continent. Yet in Arabia, they are regularly found at this latitude.

skylark 4

When first seen, it was loosely associating with the only other lark we saw in the open woodland. That was bar-tailed lark. It dwarfed it for size and was obviously much darker. They looked an odd couple.

bar-tailed lark

A little earlier we had struggled to find any birding sites around the town of Akjoujt itself. The best we managed was the rubbish dump near the gold and iron mine. Here the brown-necked raven were mobbing two passing birds of prey. One was a black kite and the other was a smart adult male marsh harrier.

marsh harrier at Akjoujt

On the way out we had stopped at two sites further south. One was 100 kilometres south of Akjoujt while the other was 85 kilometres. The one was more open woodland while the more northerly one was flat dried grassland with a couple of scattered trees.

western Bonelli's warbler (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

The woodland area had the expected passage warblers: western orphean warbler, sub-alpine warbler and chiffchaff. Western Bonelli's warbler was not really unexpected either.

black-eared wheatear

Both northern wheatear and black-eared wheatear were present. The males are easier to identify at this time of year in their breeding plumage.The sparrows were worth a good look. The majority were Sudanese golden sparrow but at least two were desert sparrow.

Indeed the other stop in grassland, 15 kilometres further north gave us a whole flock of desert sparrow. It was a pleasure to see so many in close contact.

desert sparrow

They were often mixing with black-crowned sparrow-lark. Other species there included hoopoe lark and cricket longtail.

hoopoe lark

The trip overall was a complete success. All target resident species were seen and two bonus birds were also added to the country list of which one was a vagrant.I am grateful once again to Mohamed Vall for his companionship at birding, his photos when needed and his driving.

Tuesday, 14 March 2017

My first visit to Adrar took place last weekend. I teamed up with Mohamed Vall once again.All four resident species which were targetted before we started out were added to my list and another species was a less expected bonus. On all counts it was a great success for both of us.We stayed at Auberge Bab Sahara in Atar having arrived after dusk on Friday. We can recommend this accommodation to all.We birded straight out of the Auberge on Saturday morning up the dry river bed and near-by farmland on the western side of the town.The first successful addition to my list was African rock martin. Several were observed hawking for insects over some rubbish left in the river bed. They were feeding continually and in the end we left before the birds.

African rock martin

Earlier we had seen both fulvous babbler and Blue-naped mousebird in the early morning.

Fulvous babbler

Atar is only 80 kilometres south of the border of the Western Palearctic as defined by many. Indeed the area north of Atar is the only place in the western palearctic where blue-naped mousebird can be found.

blue-naped mouse bird

Three types of lark were easily seen. These were black-crowned sparrow-lark, crested lark and bar-tailed lark. However desert lark which was one of our resident target birds was not observed in this area.

black-crowned sparrow lark

White-crowned wheatear is clearly common here. However the wheatear population is currently swollen with migrant northern wheatear and black-eared wheatear.

white-crowned wheatear

In total 24 species were seen in Atar and they were varied. The full list is given at the end of the blog.

However the remaining resident targets of trumpeter finch, house bunting and desert lark were nowhere to be seen in Atar itself.

We decided to head out south west to look in less urban and more hilly habitat for these in the afternoon.

distant shots of black kite

Having just gone through the police checkpoint on the southern edge of the town, 14 black kite were noticed flying north. We stopped and had a few minutes view before they disappeared on continued migration. This was an unexpected bonus sighting.Midway between Atar and Hamdoun, 10 kilometres out of town, we elected to bird up the rocky hills and their associated wadis. After a lot of effort our first desert lark was finally tracked down. (Incidentally I birded the same place the next day while Mohamed was occupied and saw six of them). We were particularly disappointed in not seeing any trumpeter finch there on the Saturday.

Our next plan was to explore the village of Hamdoun which is half way down the plateau which Atar rests on.Here we found more blue-naped mousebird as well as both black bush-robin and rufous bush-robin. Given the presence of palm plantations, it was no surprise that laughing dove a.k.a palm dove were very common.

laughing dove

Mohamed Vall asked a local farm worker if there was any permanent water near-by. The worker directed us to some pools just off the main road. Permanent water is a scarse commodity and I knew from experience it is good to just sit and watch what comes to it.

Hamdoun pools

This proved to be a good decision. A pair of little ringed plover landed. They were presumably on passage.

little ringed plover (photo courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

What followed were both of our remaining resident target species. Several trumpeter finch landed to drink while two house bunting were seen too.

trumpeter finch (photo courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

Mohamed Vall had more success with pictures there and I am grateful for permission to use two of them.With this success we returned to Atar for a very late lunch near the bus station. It was here we heard Eurasian collared dove while eating. Scanning around, we could see them on top of street lights from time to time.Eurasian collared dove is expanding its range in north west Africa. I suspect sloppy identification by some who claim African collared dove in central and northern Mauritania. Just because it is a collared dove in Africa doesn't mean one can relax about identification. In Nouakchott for example, Eurasian collared dove outnumbers African collared dove at least 15 fold. Further north than Nouakchott, I find African collared dove very rarely.

Eurasian collared-dove (also courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

On Sunday morning we headed back towards Nouakchott but not without a few hours birding on the way. This included an early diversion to the tourist village of Terjit.Here we saw all four of our original target species in one place. We got better pictures of all except for African rock martin too.

desert lark

Desert lark greeted us almost where we parked the car.

house bunting at Tergit

Over 20 house bunting were observed including five in one person's occupied house. They really live up to their name.

trumpeter finch at Terjit

Trumpeter finch were scattered in shaded places in the upper part of the village as well as on the rocks near the water cascades.It was beyond the water cascades that we found yet another addition to the list. This one was not a predictable resident. It was a male blue rock thrush. Unfortunately we failed to obtain a clear picture.

white-crowned wheatear at Terjit

Other birds continued to interest us in the village though. White-crowned wheatear were seen throughout. A flock of blue-naped mousebird flew past.

sub-alpine warbler at Terjit

Like elsewhere in the district, a sub-alpine warbler was found.After 90 minutes in Terjit we pressed on with our homeward journey only to stop soon after at a green wadi with varied trees and bushes at Yagref.The stop at Yagref give me mixed emotions. On the positive side we got good views of house bunting again. Incredibly we came across a second male blue rock thrush and this one was drinking very close to our hiding place.

blue-rock thrush at Yagref

On the down side, I heard what sounded like an owl calling in a tree. It sounded like some kind of alarm. As I got close to the tree two black bush robin flew out. Then a European scops owl flew out the back. I didn't see it but Mohamed Vall did. I wonder if the black bush robin had been mobbing it. Either way, I won't count it on my Mauritanian list without sight. This is my standard. Mohamed Vall can claim it though!

To add more to my misfortune, we had heard a flock of bee-eaters pass over while we had been deep in cover. They could easily have been European bee-eater which would also have been new to my country list. Such is the fine divide between pass and failure.

However all was not lost. The next blog will tell of our outward and homeward journeys especially in the Akjoujt area. Here the sightings included a true vagrant.